Omaha’s first identity was as one of the Gateways to the West. The city’s nicknames changed as Omaha’s position in the national economy shifted from gateway to a regional industrial center, earning titles such as “Porkopolis” and “The Magic City” (because the city’s seemingly instant growth was magical). However, Omaha’s magical period has ended. Though Omaha’s future may not depend on its position as “Home of the Reuben,” it certainly reflects the reality of the city’s changing economy. A national culture that renders many cities’ local experiences similar leaves urban areas looking for the things that maintain some individuality and might even bring in visitors. Just like Omaha, my hometown of Grand Rapids begun to change its identity in the past few years. Though once the Furniture City, Grand Rapids emphasizes other aspects of West Michigan life as furniture production waned, including its new (shared) position as Beer City USA.

Now it is possible that these slogans stand out because I’m just in the mood for a good beer and sandwich. However, I think there is a distinct shift towards cities appealing to identities less in the past manufacturing golden ages, which even have become baggage for cities within the Rust Belt. For example, Pittsburgh still has the Steelers, but the city no longer leans on its industrial heritage. The banner on the city’s webpage touts Pittsburgh as “A most liveable city.” The front page of the 2012 visitors guide highlights the city’s history as “The Birthplace of Pop Culture” and “Home of Art & Innovation, Celebrity, Entrepreneurial Spirit and The Andy Warhol Museum.” Just as Pittsburgh transitioned from one of the cities claiming to be the Gateway to the West to the Steel City (or rather, one of the Steel Cities), it is now changing its image to better fit the post-industrial economy of innovation and start-ups.

Omaha may not be planning on constructing an elaborate Reuben-centered city identity, but its efforts to highlight the city’s individuality do reflect other cities’ attempts to reinvent themselves in the new global economy.

It’s a work in progress, so I hope this blog post looks laughably outdated in a short amount of time. But what struck me was the disproportionate amount of works in higher ed news sources. Yes, we should defend the humanities to our peers and administrators, but don’t we have an obligation, if the humanities truly are a benefit to society, to make sure all of society knows that?

As I was writing this post earlier today, there were sixteen articles posted half of which were from either Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education or Perspectives. Duke and Phi Beta Kappa Society also published articles in their magazines, which I would suggest are quasi-academic as their audiences are the general public.

This left six articles from sources aimed at the general public. One blog, two New York Times articles, and one article each from the Guardian, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Huffington Post.

While clearly there is still an engagement with the public and hopefully the numbers continue to improve as more resources are added. However, if we assume for a minute that this small sample is representative (we probably shouldn’t but go with me for the sake of the argument), should humanists be satisfied that our message reaches the public less than 40% of the time?

The craftsman part of the quote stuck with me because I read The Historian’s Toolbox: A Student’s Guide to the Theory and Craft of History as an undergrad. The image of history as a craft has appealed to me since then. Historians hone and perfect historical thinking and writing. Graduate school even functions, in part, like an apprenticeship. Like a finely crafted piece of furniture, history can have a real beauty, even if it is serving a practical function as well.

So if history is a craft, does that mean historians know what they’re going to make before beginning? To a degree. That’s why we write proposals. That’s why I can pitch a general idea of my dissertation before my proposal. We have ideas of what we would like to explore and theories we would like to argue. But sometimes, the history doesn’t cooperate.

Perhaps my favorite part of researching and writing history is the element of discovery. In working on several different research projects, I have found that going through archival sources has drastically altered my argument. During my undergraduate thesis, I ended up completely changing the location of my case study because the new sources I found were just more compelling. The uncertainty of the archive excites my imagination, even when I have an idea of what I want to do. The idea of history as a work of art, an uncertain product waiting to be created, appeals to me.

Unleashing, or at least acknowledging, the artistry of creating history could ultimately increase the popular appeal of historical monographs. History has broad popular appeal and yet, most historian-authored books are lightly read. A columnists’ biography of Calvin Coolidge is currently third on the New York Times’ Nonfiction bestsellers list. I’m sure it’s a great book. But I’m also quite confident that there are more interesting topics being covered by historians right now (Sorry Calvin). The fact that I own a book titled How to Write History that People Want to Read reflects the inability of historians to adequately meet the public’s desire for engaging historical writing.

Whether a craft or an art, historians cannot afford to rely on the existing scholarly structures. University presses are struggling and humanities funding is constantly under fire. But history will always be socially relevant. Historical writing will always have a large audience. The question is, will historians play a central or marginal role?

In a sense, historical arguments are mostly circumstantial. Historians use sources to describe societies, ideas, and events, but complete reconstruction or replication is impossible. Instead, we build a case for our arguments with our supporting evidence to convince our audience, that’s why there are so many large monographs with extensive citations.

Fields in which replication of experiments is possible seem to write less. My limited interaction with social scientists for example suggests a big difference in the main form of scholarly publication: books and some articles for historians and articles and maybe some books for other fields. At the core, we are doing much of the same work. Collecting data to build an argument about some experience. Historians rely on examples from large collections of sources instead of running experiments though. While most social scientists will quantify their results through statistics, most historians utilize more qualitative methods.

Certainly, historians must not abandon narrative. In fact, historical scholarship needs more narrative in its history if anything. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a quantifiable measure of certainty supporting an argument? Quantitative history was fashionable for a short period of time, but using complex statistics correctly and writing a rich narrative are difficult enough to do on their own, let alone together.

Though a more quantitative argument could prove alienating to those unfamiliar with statistics, I think it would actually provide scholars with an easier way to engage the public and distinguish their work from less historically rigorous popular history books and wild claims by historians. Obviously, these are preliminary thoughts (with no supporting statistics), but the question of certainty is one in which historians must not take as assumed.

Instead, the city’s economic and social positioning is what really matters as to whether or not a city is “small” or “big.” So while Grand Rapids is the regional center of Western Michigan (it’s size and regional importance are making me think I should start using the term “mid,” but for consistency’s sake, I’ll stay with calling it and others “small” cities) it is very much in the shadow of Detroit and Chicago.

A quick way to find out whether your city is small or big is to look at its amenities. Does it have a professional sports team? Then it’s probably a big city. What about a major airport? I think you can make a good case. While I can continue to name non-scientific measuring sticks, I will look at a few commonalities of the nature of small cities to bring out the essence of a small city.

Fills an economic niche
Lacking the size to boast a robust, autonomous economy of its own, small cities specialize in one or a few closely related industries in order to gain national and even international importance. While on the most part small cities sit on a secondary or tertiary level of the national economy, these particular industries can allow the city to move up to a limited, but significant, place in the national marketplace.

Examples
Grand Rapids is the “Furniture City.”
Battle Creek is the “Cereal City.”
Akron is the “Rubber Capital of the World.”
Parks and Rec’s Pawnee, Indiana is even home to Sweetums.

Small and powerful elite
Often the family or families running a small city’s primary industry amass a large fortune. This vast amount of wealth that comes from controlling these national companies in small (and less expensive) cities grants them a huge amount of power over local affairs as major employers and city benefactors.

Examples
Grand Rapids’ early twentieth century had several important families, many heading furniture companies, though the better example comes from the contemporary city with Amway’s DeVos and Van Andel families. In Battle Creek, there was the Kellogg family and in Akron the Firestone, Goodrich, and other rubber elites. For Parks and Rec, it’s the Newport family.

Large (sometimes unusual) events designed to attract attention
Big cities don’t necessarily need large events to promote tourism and their local economy. These cities can rely on its attractive nature to turn ordinary events into large ones (such as the popularity of the New York, Chicago, or Boston marathons). Some cities themselves even become tourist attractions. A city like New York can have tourist buses drive around the city everyday. Grand Rapids, not so much. Instead, small cities take a strategy similar to their economic specialization. Small cities pick one event and make it big.

Examples
ArtPrize
The Fourth of July City
The World’s Largest Porch swing
Carhenge
The Harvest Festival
Ice Town

Clarity
Good teachers are clear. Clarity seems to be the most important aspects of good teaching. Good teachers make clear the expectations of students, the delivery of the course material and the structure of their course, class sessions, assignments and exams. Though not every student may not be the best listener, the best professors make sure miscommunication is kept to a minimum, something students seem to appreciate.

Presence
Presents would also stick out in the classroom had professors given them out, but I am talking about something a little harder to describe. There’s not an easy way to describe classroom presence that good teachers have, but it is obvious when professors have it. It’s a confidence and energy that draw students in, without resorting to simple efforts to entertain in the classroom. It’s lectures that have clear, but also compelling narratives. The best professors create a class that students want to attend, even if attendance is not required.

Respect
Like presence, respect is a bit of a vague term to describe the way in which good teachers build a classroom that allows students to feel safe when expressing opinions. It also encompasses a phenomenon I’ve noticed of good teachers, in that they approaching teaching as an important craft. They see students as people whose points of view should be understood and minds respected. Students are not simply raw materials ready to be molded. The best professors carry a presence in the classroom, but also respect students enough to make the classroom about the students and their learning, not just the professor and what she or he has to say.

High (but fair) Expectations
Good teachers know their audience well enough to challenge their students. In this way, professors craft assignments and courses designed to push the students out of their comfort zone, but not too far so that professors end up expecting freshmen to think as seniors and seniors as graduate students. Expectations is one of the most difficult things I deal with as a TA. My first semester in graduate school was also only a few months after being an undergraduate, but, as I learned, there is a big difference between senior history major and freshman just trying to pass the history requirement. While understanding the limitations of students at various levels is important, not diluting the material is equally if not more important. The best professors manage their expectations, knowing how to bring out the best of students without making the course overwhelming.

Where are you from?

A simple question, well sort of. Even though it is a seemingly innocuous question, asking where some one “comes from” actually looks to discover the initial impressions of a person by situating them culturally as well as geographically. There are plenty of social stereotypes centered around geographical location. Like it or not, identifying as someone from a small rural city will give a different impression as someone from a large urban city. This does not mean that one is “better” but that a set of assumptions (correct or not) will be made about a person depending on where s/he identifies as her/his place of origin. What place we select as our geographic identity, in my experience at least, says more about our individual identity and current location than whichever place I was “from.”

I’m from Wisconsin

I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a lovely place, or at least that’s what I hear. I was only two when we left so I have no memories of the city. Despite the fact I can’t remember my birthplace, as a kid in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I enjoyed self-identifying as a Cheesehead. Though I suppose I was technically a Michigan football fan growing up (I know, what was I thinking), I took special interest in cheering for Ron Dayne and the Badgers from my first city.

I enjoyed the novelty of being from another state without having to be the new kid. Like most of my classmates, all my memories were of Western Michigan. I did not have to adjust to living in a new city, because I did not remember the old one. But, if I wanted, I could still claim to be foreign. In grade school, Madison could be my exotic birthplace.

I’m from Michigan

Wisconsin still holds a special place in my heart as my birthstate, but as I grew up I realized that millions of people are from Wisconsin. It’s not as unique as it seemed when I was a child. So my Michigan experiences became much more important to my self-identity.

My Michigan-ness really set in when I went off to college. Going to Notre Dame, I was suddenly in contact with people from states all across the nation. States that didn’t point to their hand when explaining where they came from (Grand Rapids is in the middle of the palm below the far side of the pinky). I met people actually “from” Wisconsin. So it was then that I very consciously and consistently became from Michigan, specifically Western Michigan. I met a fair amount of people either from Michigan or very familiar with the state so differentiating myself as being from the West side set me off from all those students from Detroit, well suburban Detroit.

A quick aside–Being from a city vs a suburban area often seemed to be a point of contention between students from Chicagoland. I once witnessed an argument about whether someone living in an Indiana suburb of Chicago could claim to be from the city, despite living in another state. Further complicating the debate, the Hoosier Chicagoan lived closer to the actual city of Chicago than the Illinois suburban student.

As I moved further from the city, where I was “from” became, without a doubt, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Even though I spent most of my time in South Bend, Indiana. Of course if I had identified as from South Bend, I would have been identified as a “townie.” And I was certainly not one of those.

I’m from Nebraska?

While I was clearly in South Bend temporarily, my move to Nebraska was more permanent. Assuming I stay living in Lincoln for the length of my Ph.D., Lincoln will be the city in which I’ll have lived for the longest after Grand Rapids. Also by then, I will be nearly a decade removed from Michigan being my year-round residence. So where was, or rather “am,” I from? When I travel I literally come from Nebraska. I have a Nebraska drivers license and have had for almost my entire time living in the state. I consider myself a resident, but does Nebraska feel the same way? I was just reading an article on UNL’s new athletic director, who the University Chancellor Harvey Perlman noted is “not a born Nebraskan, but he seemed like a Nebraskan when you sit down and talk to him.” So I wonder. Am I a Nebraskan, or do I just seem like one?

Lincoln is my home, though I can’t say it’s my hometown. When answering where I am from, after noting that I live in Lincoln I often mention that I grew up in Michigan. Perhaps this comes from a persisting effort to distance myself from being a “townie.” I like to think of it as pride in the furniture city, but then again maybe I just want to be from an exotic land. One just below the pinky in about the middle of the palm.

Hipsters like organic and local.
DHers like open access and open source.

Hipsters like old things (record players, typewriters, old clothing etc).
DHers like old things (especially the historians).

Hipsters like new technology (i.e. Apple products).
DHers like new technology (it’s the “digital” part).

Hipsters listen to music you’ve never heard of.
DHers have #dhmusic.

Hipsters fight over who is a hipster.
DHers fight over who is in DH.

Hipsters “tend to have obscure, intellectual or artsy college degrees” and “have a certain attitude — a blend of indifference, sleepiness and snobbery”.
DHers went to grad school. And I mean if this guy’s profile picture doesn’t epitomize a blend of indifference, sleepiness and snobbery, I don’t know what does.

happy fuckers? i’ve conformed to a necessary evil.

(Apologies for the profanity, I was young) However, the fact was that as a college freshmen before the social media explosion, Facebook was a bit of a social necessity. A few year later though, I can tweet, text, email, or god-forbid call, one of my family members or friends. I am not against social networks, but just found that too much of my time was being spent on them with little benefit. As an easily distracted worker, I needed to cut down my distractions. I still have twitter so I might miss a few interesting links on Facebook, but overall I save some time by not checking Facebook.

I also cancelled my subscription to Netflix, which was a much harder thing to convince myself to do. But the main point remained, how much do I need? Do I really need to watch shows on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon’s streaming service available with a Prime membership? The answer was probably not. So now I save $7.99 a month, but miss a few shows I may have otherwise enjoyed. Again, a little given up, but probably a lot more saved.

It’s the same reason I don’t have cable. I miss some cultural things, but do I really need all those TV channels? Nope. You learn to survive without them pretty easily actually. I also grew up without cable so it’s nothing new. I think I can blame my parents for my lack of Facebook now too. Out of myself, my parents and my four siblings no one has Facebook anymore. That’s can’t be purely a coincidence.

Less is more is cliche, but faced with a post-coursework schedule that is almost too flexible, I have turned to simplifying my life to put more order in it. With coursework it was easy to get lost in the everyday of the semester with frequent, short term deadlines. When studying for comprehensive exams and working on my dissertation, the deadlines are very long term. I feel like I need a relatively uncluttered daily schedule to maintain focus on these big goals and getting rid of Facebook was an attempt to unclutter my daily routine.

I had to keep twitter though, I follow the Dalai Lama. I mean following him will give me inner-peace, right?